Jacob Zuma is set to be become the first former president and former head of state to be expelled by the ANC for misconduct.
This after the ANC, on Monday, moved to suspend Zuma’s membership over various transgressions, including public attacks on the party and its leadership among others.
The national executive committee (NEC) this weekend discussed Zuma’s fate and dealt him his first blow, which is likely to lead to his eventual expulsion.
The NEC suspended Zuma from the party for contravening the party’s constitution after campaigning and leading a party that is not in alliance with the ANC.
Zuma has been criss-crossing the country under the banner of a new political formation, the Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.
In his addresses to MK Party supporters, Zuma has maintained that his conscience does not allow him to vote for the “ANC of [Cyril] Ramaphosa”.
He has said he remained a member of the ANC and that MK Party was there to fix the organisation he believed has been damaged by the current cohort of leaders.
ANC NEC on Monday announced it had decided to “summarily suspend” Zuma’s party membership.
This is the first time, in the history of the 112 year-old movement, that it has had to suspend, and is likely to expel, a former president.
The party recently expelled Zuma’s ally, former secretary-general Ace Magashule, a decision that was also a first.
The party’s secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the ANC had never dealt with a situation where a former president had left the party and had to be suspended.
The moonshot is anti-transformation, we know, led by the DA. Here we say Jacob Zuma has projected himself as the godfather of this alliance. They all agreed about one thing, that the ANC must be below 50%
— ANC secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula
“You don’t associate a person of president Zuma’s stature in the party, a stalwart, a veteran, with actions like that. Moreover, that person has been a president of the country and a former president of the ANC, it has never happened,” said Mbalula.
“We’ve never had a president of the ANC who has left us. We have had prominent members who have left the ANC. Some even before we were unbanned were dismissed from the party for failing on party discipline. But in the new dispensation we have not had somebody of president Zuma’s calibre and stature leaving the party the way he has done.”
Mbalula said Zuma went from publicly supporting the MK Party to now leading it. He said the MK Party was a “Zuma Project” whose aim was to dislodge the ANC from power.
Mbalula said, over and above contravening the ANC constitution, Zuma had also made “vitriolic attacks” against the ANC and its leadership after he announced he would back the MK Party.
He said the MK Party had now become part of the opposition party group that have ganged up on the ANC with the sole purpose of pulling it below 50% at the polls.
“The moonshot is anti-transformation, we know, led by the DA. Here we say Jacob Zuma has projected himself as the godfather of this alliance. They all agreed about one thing, that the ANC must be below 50%,” said Mbalula.
He said the decision to suspend Zuma from the party was unanimous in the NEC.
“This was a unanimous decision of the NEC. There was no dissent on this decision. So there was no minority view. There was a discussion in the NEC that was open, it didn’t take long. It was not a contentious discussion because he has made up his mind,” said Mbalula.
“KZN was part of this discussion, and they contributed to the discussion. At the end, it was a unanimous decision of the NEC, that we must take this direction, and it didn't take us day and night to arrive at that conclusion.”
Mbalula said they were not entirely shocked by the formation of the MK Party, as there had been signs of dissent from Zuma and his supporters, including the RET.
“This practice is not a shocker because it has to be expected, because you’ve had a big group of people who have rallied behind president Zuma, while they were within the ANC and vowed not to work for our party. Some of them could not make it to the power structures of leadership in the ANC and they’ve been hanging there without an option. And so now that the MK Party is announced, we see them mushrooming and others have gone into the EFF and all of that,” explained Mbalula.
“So people who were denouncing the party on a daily basis. These are not new faces, they call themselves names within the party — RET forces, all of that. It has gone in that direction. It is not a shocker that these people were within our movement and the party and not working within the rules of the party and promoting the brand ANC, but working to dethrone the ANC from within.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.